City Council - Regular Meeting

It is now 1 p.m. And I call the special city council meeting to order. All council members are present. And council member Kimball will be giving the invocation, and I will give the pledge of allegiance.

I ask each of you to pray in your faith as I pray in mine. Precious Heavenly Father, we thank you for this gathering today as we take care of the business of the cities. We ask you to look over us, guidance, give us wisdom, give us guidance. We ask that each person here today take in the knowledge, share it, and continue to bless the community and give us discernment as we make decisions that affect this city as a whole. In my Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Council, I need a motion to approve the agenda. Council Member Brown?

Move to approve the agenda.

Council Member Nash-King? Second the motion. Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, Council. And thank you, Council Member Kimball, for the invocation. Okay, now it's time for citizens' comments. Citizens will have three minutes to speak with one minute time allotted for the City Council to respond with a statement or explanation without engaging in dialogue. Madam City Secretary, please call the names.

First speaker is Michael Fornino.

Good afternoon, sir.

In your selection and review of resumes for candidates to replace a city manager, not so much what is required, what is demanded. Well noted that I've pointed out several problems with our current city manager. While others fawn all over his record, what is needed and required is a city manager that will take accountability for his actions or her actions or inactions. I'll cite Bunny Trail, Watercrest, Rosa Hereford Center, Gilmer Street. Everybody's fault but his. We've had Contractors all over the city punching holes in the plumbing that due to the state law, we can't fully charge them back. And what do they do? They accelerate punching holes in the plumbing. His past record, nothing is his fault here in his previous cities. I would encourage you all that whomever you get down to your final few on the selection, do your homework. Because I think all of you should be familiar by now that I do mine. A person should not have been fired with cause from anything, from any city, anywhere, at any time. It should be your first question to each and every one of them. Show proof of their work. Have them come to the chalkboard and say, I've done this, I have done that, or I have solved this or solved that. I think it's also an insult to the taxpayer in this town and to an extent the city staff. We have spent, correct me on the figure, $28,000 to hire a firm to go look for a city manager. Do we not have an HR director and a city communications department? Are we not the 16th largest city in Texas? When are we going to start acting like it? Not where and as when convenient. It should be. Our city should be looking for the persons. Marketing the city, that's the communication department's job. Why are we doubling down? We're paying for the same thing twice. The new city manager should not be afraid to come forward with change orders as requested that we wanted as a charter amendment that you all saw fit to vote down. I want to see what's being spent and where. that you don't have to approve, but it's just shuffled on down the road as a course of business. That's unacceptable and it's got to stop. We've demonstrated time and again where city manager can spend far and above in a month or indeed a quarter above the approved $50,000 on one item can nickel and dime us about some more fiscal responsibility and not just treat us like an inexhaustible supply of money. Choose wisely. Do your homework. Because if you don't, you can be rest assured that I will.

Thank you, sir. City Secretary?

Uncle Negan?

Good afternoon, ma'am. Good evening.

Thank you. Council and Mayor, I ask that you choose a city manager who cares about the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and state law. I ask that you choose a city manager who's not afraid to hear criticism. I ask that you choose a city manager who's unafraid of transparency. And last but not least, I ask that you choose a city manager who is not okay with lying to city council. By now you know that there are several federal and state agencies investigating the city. You remember the email I sent you, I think it was in June. Well, several of them contacted me and I did meet with them. In case these agencies find any wrongdoing, I think it would be in the best interest of the city to hire a city manager who has no connection to the current leadership in the city. Because I don't know how long the investigation takes. I don't know what they're going to find. It's not up to me. But if they do find something and they're connected to the new city manager, it could be a problem for Colleen. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Madam City Secretary.

Jamie Carroll.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

Good afternoon. Thanks for letting me go last. You know it's my favorite. Qualifications. I want someone to have at least an MPA. If you guys know what that is, we are a very unique town. We're still growing. We have the military. They need some kind of familiarity with that. But they can't just be, well, we came from this small product town that does not have the ebbs and flows that we have going on here. I like what some of the other people have said. No connection to our current city anybody is what I would really like to see. Because you can't run a city effectively when you have too many friendships going on behind the scenes. When I contact the city manager to complain about a department head, and that email just gets forwarded to the department head with no communication to me, and that's where the issue stops and dies. The city can't keep moving forward, and it definitely is not going to be able to sustain the amount of growth that you guys want to see here. Furthermore, of the candidates that you guys are going to put forth publicly, I don't know if you guys can scrub the personal details or what, but I would like to see what the qualifications were of the other candidates that you guys deemed that you're not going to put in front of us. Because there's no way for me to say without a shadow of a doubt that you guys did not cut loose perfectly good candidates. Because I do want someone that's going to come here, and they can be cordial with everyone here, but they're not going to be your friend. Because they're not here to just be friends with only city council or sit there and call citizens liars, including myself, when I know many of you have received evidence of my own personal issues. Clearly, I'm not a liar. So I don't want someone... They can't be professional in that sense, and they can't maintain the boundaries. They're here to manage the city, which includes all of us, all of the issues, not just the city budget that is vague, doesn't contain all the line items, and magically we can never tighten our purse strings in any areas, and we have to keep cranking up taxes. That's not going to work going forward. So that's what I want. you guys look for in a city manager. I know, high order, but we're a big and growing city. I don't think that's hard to find. And I definitely... No political candidates, nobody with arrest records, no embezzlement charges. It's pretty easy to get through life without any of these scandals under your belt. I personally have never been fired. I don't know why so many people have, but I definitely don't want them as my city manager. And I don't think people moving here with all of our growth are going to want that either. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

There are no more speakers.

Thank you, Madam City Secretary. OK, we shall now go into. Executive session reading pursuant of the Texas Open Meeting law. Government code 551.001. The mayor calls now a closed meeting of the City Council on the first day of September 2026 at 1.11. section 551.074 personal matters the city council will discuss and review applications for city manager position and that's agenda ds-26-78 we will now go into an executive session OK, we called this meeting. At 410. I have 410 and. OK. No action was taken and I would exit if we could. Have a motion to adjourn. Council, Mayor Pro Tem.

I make a motion to adjourn.

Council Member Kimball.

I second that, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Any discussion? No discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Meeting's adjourned.